Narcissism
I want to educate, raise awareness and help sufferers or narcissistic abuse. This page is essentially a pin board or scrap book resource of information I have come across on my journey.
Books I have found useful
Podcasts worth a Listen
Sam Vaknin - Diagnosed Narcissist on Youtube
Sam Vaknin is a writer and author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. In the mid-1980s he became aware of difficulties in his relationship with his fiancée and sought help from a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Vaknin did not accept the diagnosis. In Israel in 1995 he was found guilty on three counts of securities fraud and was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. As a condition of parole, he agreed to a mental health evaluation, which noted various personality disorders the most dominant was NPD," and on this occasion he accepted the diagnosis, because, he wrote, "it was a relief to know what I had." Vaknin now has a prolific online presence, writing on narcissism and psychopathy.
In his view, narcissists have lost their "true self", the core of their personality, which has been replaced by delusions of grandeur, a "false self". Therefore, he believes, they cannot be healed, because they do not exist as real persons, only as reflections: "The False Self replaces the narcissist's True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence ... The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation,"[21] meanwhile keeping his real-life imperfect true self under wraps.[22] Vaknin extends the concept of narcissistic supply, and introduces concepts such as primary and secondary narcissistic supply.[23] He distinguishes between cerebral and somatic narcissists; the former generate their narcissistic supply by applying their minds, the latter their bodies. He considers himself a cerebral narcissist.[24] He calls narcissistic co-dependents "inverted narcissists."[25] "[They] provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening audience...the perfect backdrop."[26] He believes that disproportionate numbers of pathological narcissists are at work in the most influential reaches of society, such as medicine, finance and politics.[7]
Vaknin developed recently a new treatment modality for narcissism and depression, dubbed "Cold Therapy". [27] It is based on recasting pathological narcissism as a form of CPTSD (Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) and arrested development which result in an addictive personality with a dysfunctional attachment style. The therapy uses re-traumatization and a form of reframing [28] German introduction to Cold Therapy [29]